Blue Ox

Upon the referral of our friend, Killjoy, we were told we HAD to check out the Blue Ox. Apparently there are multiples of these in town, but as it is a local favorite, we decided to check it out... Mostly because Killjoy is very rarely wrong about these sorts of things and we trust his judgement. Also, it appears that the Blue Ox owner is a huge Minnesota Vikings fan. For those of you who don't know, I (Rabbit) am from Michigan, so I feel a certain type of kinship with people who are also from god-forsaken cold places. That and we Midwesterners have some kickass food. (Woot woot to the Midwesterners in the hizzy!)

So we dropped in yesterday evening and were pleasantly surprised by the laid back, Pulp Fiction type feel the diner had. We took a seat and perused the menu. And it looked good.

Now, Killjoy had insisted that we try the chicken fingers (not a giant twist of my arm by any means) so that's what I ordered. Generally, that entrée comes with home made potato chips but I opted for the french fries, as I don't usually care for chips to begin with (unless you're British and by chips you mean fries. . . but I digress). Kobold had the Minnesota Viking (roast beef on a bakery style roll with tomato and onion, served with horseradish on the side) and he got the home made potato chips.

Overall the meal was quite good, though the waitstaff needed to be slapped around a bit. Kobold and his hatred of poisonous death apples (tomatoes) caused a small ordering malfunction (the sandwich came with tomatoes which he asked to be left off, and did not include onion or the horseradish). My meal came with the chips, but I did eventually get my fries.

Kobold's roast beef was quite good, though lacking in onions and horseradish and tasted slightly of tomato. The sandwich was a little smaller than he had anticipated, but he helped me eat my chicken fingers, so it was all ok. He said that the chips were also good but a little on the bland side.

My entrée was very good indeed. I ordered the mild chicken fingers and was surprised by the heaping portion. Each "finger" was damned near 6, 6.5 inches long and I got 5 or 6 of them. Quite a meal indeed. It's a good thing that Kobold was there to help me. I got a very small order of fries when they did come, but I'm not sure that that was the full order...

So, overall the rating is probably around a B+ for the food, but a C or so for the service. Don't get me wrong; we'll go back (Because I think the waitress was either a little "special" or really new) to give it another try.